“Israel reserves the right to defend itself… from a 21 year old medic.”

Razan al-Najjar, 21 year old medic from Gaza had to be shot dead by an Israeli Army sniper who selected his target from several hundred meters from behind a buffer zone, barbed wire, reinforced fence, another buffer zone and finally an entrenched, fortified row of armour-plated vehicles. He shot Razan in the back with a long-range, high powered, high velocity rifle with bullets specifically designed to cause maximum tissue, bone and organ damage.

The Israeli soldier had no choice but to shoot Razan – just as hundreds of other Palestinians have been shot in pretty much identical circumstances, in just a matter of weeks… all because they are terrorists.

After killing Razan, the Israeli soldier will have been offered counselling and then commendation. His military career will be celebrated by inspired generations of Israelis thankful to him for killing Razan. Israeli government spokesmen will be granted media airtime by international outlets to explain, to rationalise why Razan had to killed; they will use ready scripted words like: regrettable, unfortunate, not-deliberately-target-civilians, could-not-be-avoided, threatening, security, investigation, most-moral-army, etc.

Razan will be buried today in a corner of Gaza – the most densely populated place on the face of the earth, an open air prison that is home to 2m people besieged for over ten years and which is running out of drinking water.

Gaza is also running out of corners to bury its young people who are being killed in numbers that can only be categorised as genocidal.

After Razan’s burial, the international community will offer weasel words of token disquiet with Israeli Amy tactics while at the same time keen to be seen to be ‘balanced’ by reinforcing the same Israeli rationale as to why Razan had to be killed – “Israel reserves the right to defend itself… from a 21 year old medic”.’